


From the never published autobiography of Peter Colt

by salable_mystic



Category: Wimbledon (2004)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salable_mystic/pseuds/salable_mystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Colt is good at many things, but at writing ... he kind of sucks. Ron Roth knows this, and has the evidence to prove it - the stack of papers back from when Peter decided to write an autobiography, which is now slowly gathering dust on his shelf. The world, Ron Roth decides, does not need to know about Peter's love for brackets, and asides, and meandering sentences. They know of his love for tennis, and Lizzie, and that's well enough. (It was an idea, though, and it would have been a sweet, <i>sweet</i> money machine).</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the never published autobiography of Peter Colt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neonhummingbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonhummingbird/gifts).



> Dear neohummingbird, your signup said that you are keen on "what happens next" stories, and so I tried to write you one :-) - what I love about "Wimbledon" is that it works with voice-overs, from which one can get a feeling for Peter's mental voice, and I tried to stay as true to that as possible in this as I could, so this is what I imagine his mental voice-overs might be like if written down, too many commas, brackets, and all ... . I hope you enjoy - and: Happy Yuletide!!!

... but that's enough about Wimbledon, and me ... except for, maybe, this tiny fact:

As you have undoubtedly realized by now, the reputation that tennis players have of being superstitious is, at least in part, well earned (even though some of the claims made are clearly ridiculous).

In Lizzie’s case, figuring out what did and did not work for her for Wimbledon was a bit of a hard case for us, but we decided early on that she was definitely going to be staying at the Dorchester again, the year after I won the tournament and quit pro tennis.

Unfortunately, playing well in a tournament and having me around still didn’t always work for Lizzie back then (nor did it ever, really), so while she ended up staying in (what she claims always was) _her_ room 1221, I ended up back in my own, rather smaller room again, as well. And when she told me to leave her be for an hour or three, or a day, or two, be it at Wimbledon, or at any other tournament, I did. Tennis was her job, after all, and I’ve always had respect for that – I’ve not always been able to show it as well as I should, but it’s always been there.

My job (my whole _life_ , really), that first year, was not very well defined – I ended up not working for the Country Club, and being the first English player to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in ’36 kept me plenty busy in my retirement, signing autographs and giving interviews and doing all that, but I did not have anything really to _do._ Being a pro athlete had ment that I was constantly, busy, and now I suddenly _wasn't_ , and that was strange, and not always comfortable (there is only so much slouching in bed on your own you can do before it gets boring and uncomfortable).

I was approached about becoming a tennis commentator on TV, and gladly accepted that job (it was work, but not too much of it, and it had the sublime advantage that it was a good way of following the tennis circus around the world on someone else’s bill, and thus of being close to Lizzie), but it did not truly satisfy me, either, as it wasn't a role I was comfortable in, nor had a great talent for. They'd hired me more for what I was than for who I was, and I’ve never been one to rest on my laurels – don’t get me wrong, I did rather enjoy my stint of fame, but it wasn’t something I wanted to keep being known for forever, without doing something else with my life, as well.  

Ron tried to sell me on the joys of advertising, but while I was grateful that he managed to get that TV commentator spot for me, I did not want to see my face plastered on every billboard advertising some eau-de-cologne or other; nor did I think that the whole world needed to see my butt wearing some fancy underpants!

So anyway, I did the commentator/tennis expert gig, and Lizzie was busy playing tennis, and that worked out okay for us for the first two years, even if things weren't always ideal.

It was a good way of being able to see each other and to really get to know each other, without being constantly around each other. We missed each other a lot before I managed to land that commentator gig - I was in England and busy being famous, and she had to be off pretty much right after Wimbledon finished to to play the Roger’s Cup in Toronto before then heading to Flushing Meadows and the US Open. True, we had had that absolutely wonderful moment on the Centre Court in Wimbledon (to say nothing of the possibly even more blissful aftermath), but suddenly the world was interfering and we both had tons of commitments we could not just push aside – and so Lizzie had to leave and I had to stay and while it did wonders for her tennis (she ended up winning the US Open for the first time that very year, and I am still ever so glad that I managed to fly over in time to see it), we were both miserable without each other (and isn’t it funny how quickly someone can become such an essential part of your life?).

So yes, the commentator job came in really handy, even though it wasn't my dream job (but then, I had just basically _quit_ my dream job, so who was I to complain?) and I could have kissed Ron when he told me that he had been approached about it. (I didn’t, though).

Being in the same place as Lizzie for so much of the time made a big difference to both of us - we both had different commitments, but we knew that we could make the time to see each other, and that, should something happen, the other one was close enough to rely upon. We didn't always see each other every day - as I said, it turned out that Lizzie really _did_ need some distance to play _really good_ tennis (love does not cure all), but just knowing that the possibility of meeting was there helped us both. 

Lizzie and I ended up moving in together that November, actually - even if mostly by accident.

How does one move in by accident?

Well, Lizzie went looking for her own place shortly after the US Open (I get on quite well with her father now, and did at the time already, too, but spending the night with Lizzie when her father was in the next room, and _I knew_ that _he_ knew that I was there was just ... not working out too well for any of us – so it was definitely time for her to move out), and found a really nice place in the TriBeCa, and I kept taking some of my things over with me whenever I flew over to see her - and ended up flying back to England with mostly empty suitcases. I ended up spending more and more time there as well – it’s not as if I’d ever managed to get my flat in Brighton properly renovated (pro tennis was too nomadic a lifestyle for that, and I’d always thought that’d be my next big project after retiring from the circuit), and eventually my flat in Brighton was still a mess, but I’d managed to install all of _her_ lights and to help get the kitchen installed and I just ... stayed, basically. Being able to go out without being recognized was also a definite advantage – that had become completely impossible in Britain at that time, and it turns out, nation-wide fame turns into more of a hassle than it is worth after a month or so. It's nice, but it's also - tedious.

So there I was in New York City, and I needed something to do during those days when I didn’t have a tournament to work at – Lizzie was kept busy with practice (which I was happy to help with, but also tried not to intrude upon if she did not ask for help), and since I actually _enjoy_ playing tennis I joined Lizzie’s NY club, and ended up doing some pro-bono coaching of their more promising young players. They’d asked me to do a one-off weekend charity thing, which was quite the success, and so I did it again, and ended up occasionally teaching tennis when I wasn’t working as commentator on TV.

It was Dennis (Lizzie’s father), who kept telling me that I ought to become an International Division Member of the U.S. Professional Tennis Association, so that I could then take my USPTA Certification Exam and become rated as a professional coach.

I didn’t have a green card back then (I got that when I married Lizzie), so I couldn’t actually be paid for my work, but as I really enjoyed coaching kids I definitely wanted to open up options in that field for my future (and Lizzie’s father actually encouraging me to spend more time in NYC, plus to look for something that might lead to me being permanently in the US was motivation all on its own).

Meanwhile, Lizzie’s career really took off – she’d been a really good tennis player even before I met her, of course, but she’d not been that well known outside the US, but with her first Grand Slam title at the US Open that year – plus a second place at the Australian Open the following January – that changed.

 _Everyone_ now wanted a piece of her, and the constant media attention got to us both. We were the darlings of the press, and soon reporters started hounding us wherever we went. Her tennis suffered from it, and she didn’t make it to the semi-finals in any of the other major tournaments that year, and, I won’t lie, we had some rough patches that year. But we struggled through them and eventually the tennis press was too busy writing about Jake Hammond’s tragic drug addiction to pay unmanageable amounts of attention to us. (I was Dieter’s sparring partner at Wimbledon again, that year, for rituals’ sake, [staying in my grotty room and all] and he managed to make it to the finals, which pleased us both a great deal).

Lizzie did not do well at Wimbledon that year, unfortunately (for, you know, Lizzie standards), but she _did_ manage to defend her US Open title.

And the year after _that_ , she won both the tournament at Roland Garros, and, _finally_ (or so it seemed to us, by then, though it had really only been three years total), _Wimbledon_. That was a great moment for us!

And then she got pregnant, which we had not planned at all. We knew, by then, that we were most definitely ‘for keeps,’ and that we did want children, but we’d always planned on having them once Lizzie retired from pro tennis, and she was not ready to do that at the time. But there we were – we figured out, in retrospect, that it must have been a combination of jetlag and food poisoning that led to Lizzie’s pregnancy despite us taking precautions, but that was neither here nor there. Lizzie was pregnant, and we needed a change of plans.

You’re probably familiar with the rough outline of our history from the papers, so you know what’s coming next, but an autobiography needs to be thorough, so here it is, anyway, even though you all know not to expect something spectacular or outrageous now: Lizzie took two years off from pro tennis, and we got married, very quietly, with only family and close friends in attendance, at my parents’ local church. When Hannah was three months old, Lizzie decided that she wasn’t done with pro tennis yet, and so she spent that second year trying to re-capture her old shape and fitness levels. I quit my job as a TV expert and pretty much became Hannah’s stay-at-home dad. Sure, we could have afforded a nursemaid (or three), but I was happy to stay with Hannah, and since there was no need for me to work – I simply didn’t. (Though we did end up hiring babysitters once Lizzie was back on the tour – we were travelling as a family, now, for the tournaments that I accompanied her to, and the extra pair of hands was often a lifesaver!)

It took a while for Lizzie to get back up to her old skill, speed and strength levels, but that woman is nothing if not determined, and she managed to become one of the best female tennis players in the world all over again, and so our little family hit the road, and re-joined the tennis circus, and Hannah became the darling of the athlete's lounge.

Being a pro tennis player with a family was different, though, and only two years later, Lizzie was ready to retire from pro tennis – she’d won Wimbledon again, as well as the Australian Open, and we were both enjoying being in New York as our little family so much that neither of us wanted to keep up the nomadic lifestyle, and Lizzie was done making the sacrifices that came with being a professional athlete - so she retired after the US Open.

I know that most papers wrote that it was too early, that she had many years of excellent tennis to look forward to, and I actually think they’re right. Had she stayed in pro tennis, I have no doubt that she could have won more Grand Slam titles. But her heart wasn’t in it anymore, and while the public at large might not have been able to see that, it was plain to me. (Dennis was very good about her retiring - I think he sensed it, too, and for all his faults [not that he has _that_ many], he always wanted a happy daughter more than he wanted a successful pro athlete).

So Lizzie retired, and we had our second child ten months later. Lizzie got to stay home with him, and I got a job teaching tennis to talented youngsters at her old club, which I am really enjoying. We also play the occasional double in a show tournament, and she’s becoming quite the sought after motivational speaker. But mostly, right now, we’re enjoying just being a family – and try not to think too hard about Hannah possibly having a talent for tennis, even though she’s quite good at it, given that she’s only five. We’re not quite certain that we’d want any of our children to have to go through all the ups and downs and hardships that pro tennis brings with it – but whatever Hannah and Sam turn out to be and do, we’ll be there, ready with a helping hand, and cheering from the sidelines.

We’ve been telling them bedtime stories about the comet that visited Earth when their mommy and daddy had just met each other, and I hope that when it returns, in seventy-odd years or so, even if Lizzie and I might not be around to see it, Hannah and Sam will, and that they’ll remember the story of how it is _really_ their mother’s tennis ball, up there in the sky.

 (Which, should it ever return to Earth and that tennis court in Brighton again, will _definitely_ be out.)

 

 

 


End file.
